January Rituals

My part of the world is drenched in rain all this week. It is a gift in this land of drought. Stuck inside I have been exploring some sites today. I came upon an interesting post about traditions originated outside of the US.

Since next week I am going to help 500 children plant seeds in soil blocks to place in cold frame tables, this first one, Sementivae, is fun.

24, Sunday
Sementivae - Old Roman festival of sowing honoring goddesses of earth, grain, and seed.

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30, Saturday
Mahayana New Year – The Mahayana Buddhists celebrate their new year with the first full moon in January, which makes sense to me.
Tu B’Shevat – A Jewish birthday party for trees. Because all trees like a party.

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31, Sunday
Imbolc– BIG DEAL old-ass festival. It’s ancient. And, just like Vasant Panchami, it’s about the first signs of Spring.

"Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders." - Henry David Thoreau, The Dispersion of Seeds 

R312: Reminder – What a Community Garden Could Become.

O284: On Day One

Michael Pollan's words directed at the soon to be pResident elect reminded me of Ondayone.org today. I embedded another On Day One video in August, Eat the View wrote:

“When Eleanor Roosevelt did something similar in 1943, she helped start a Victory Garden movement that ended up making a substantial contribution to feeding the nation in wartime. (Less well known is the fact that Roosevelt planted this garden over the objections of the U.S.D.A., which feared home gardening would hurt the American food industry.) By the end of the war, more than 20 million home gardens were supplying 40 percent of the produce consumed in America. The president should throw his support behind a new Victory Garden movement, this one seeking “victory” over three critical challenges we face today: high food prices, poor diets and a sedentary population. Eating from this, the shortest food chain of all, offers anyone with a patch of land a way to reduce their fossil-fuel consumption and help fight climate change. (We should offer grants to cities to build allotment gardens for people without access to land.) Just as important, Victory Gardens offer a way to enlist Americans, in body as well as mind, in the work of feeding themselves and changing the food system — something more ennobling, surely, than merely asking them to shop a little differently.

I don’t need to tell you that ripping out even a section of the White House lawn will be controversial: Americans love their lawns, and the South Lawn is one of the most beautiful in the country. But imagine all the energy, water and petrochemicals it takes to make it that way. (Even for the purposes of this memo, the White House would not disclose its lawn-care regimen.) Yet as deeply as Americans feel about their lawns, the agrarian ideal runs deeper still, and making this particular plot of American land productive, especially if the First Family gets out there and pulls weeds now and again, will provide an image even more stirring than that of a pretty lawn: the image of stewardship of the land, of self-reliance and of making the most of local sunlight to feed one’s family and community. The fact that surplus produce from the South Lawn Victory Garden (and there will be literally tons of it) will be offered to regional food banks will make its own eloquent statement.”

The Garden of Eatin': A Short History of America's Garden from roger doiron on Vimeo.

Source: Kitchen Gardens International

K260: Keyhole Garden

I am really captivated with this design for an urban garden. When I was at school we studied anthropometrics or the body measurement percentiles, in order to design for a wide range of body dimensions. This was followed up for the more universally known expression, ergonomics or the study of worker’s bodies in relation to tasks. The idea is to make objects, products and processes that function well with the human form.

Besides designing a garden to fit the human scale, human movements there is the second reason I love this garden and that is the environment. This garden presumes a hostile, poor and even toxic environment. It can be place on a hard surface, even concrete. It builds into the garden all of the components for the chemistry and biology, the engines of soil production. Layer by layer these simple components like tin cans, clay chards, manure, wood ash are added to the mix.

The next reason is the wise use of water and waste to keep vital nutrients to feed the soil at the very core of the garden. With the central well for composting, watering easily accessible it assures greater success at maintaining the garden. It is designed overall to make it easy to successfully grown one's own food.



More sources here and here.

K259: Killing

Just saying that word is chilling in some way. One artist studies killing, predators in her own apartment experiment. Her findings became her art, her photographs in a book published in 2000 titled Food Chain Encounters Between Mates, Predators, and Prey.

Review of her work at a Canadian gallery showing in 2003:

Viewing Catherine Chalmers' exhibition Food Chain is a little like watching The Sopranos on television. Both are about the drama of sex, intrigue, predators, consumption and death. The twenty-two large-scale colour photographs in Chalmers' exhibition are the result of a long-term project, which involved raising insects and other animals in order to re-create the predator-prey encounters one would normally see in nature and then capturing them on film. In viewing the exhibition we are able to witness a food chain that takes place in the artist's New York loft. A caterpillar eats a tomato, a praying mantis eats a caterpillar, and a frog eats a praying mantis. The result is humorous, horrific, surprising and unsettling.

Photographed on a stark white background with controlled lighting, the creatures are removed from their usual contexts and we are forced to examine the vivid detail of their actions. "I'm interested in how, these days, we're unhinged from the natural world," says Chalmers. "The truth is, these life and death struggles happen all around us, all the time. And in some ways, the very beginning of our desire to be civilized is a desire to be out of the food chain ourselves." Her riveting photographs reinvent natural history for a culture increasingly distanced from nature.

I heard about Catherine last night on an archived show Animals on Ira Glass’ This American Life. Very moving. During the program these points were made by the narrator and Chalmers.

It made her see animals like most people. She found herself taking on sides, and these sides change. You take the side of the underdog, then this one becomes the predator and you change sides again. It is a twin set of emotions, disgust and fascination. She goes on to point out the hierarchy of death. We put our human emotions into it when you can see a full grown mouse, that can see feel in a way that is clear, it get harder. She makes the point about who gets to decide what makes a pest versus a predator; the mouse, the snake or us?

I admit to having killed hundreds of caterpillar this last summer. It was vile. Day after day killing and still they came and wiped out the lettuce, spinach, beans, etc. And yet I will continue to plant. At least I am paying attention and I am paying attention to details more intently than any time in my life.

Chalmers said she thinks of her apartment as an oasis, in the middle of Soho. She loves coming from the cars, the concrete to living things. In another away it is the middle of a planet full of nature. All around things are eating, having sex and dying and we are in the middle of it unaware.

Now I have also possibly killed hundreds of worms. I am afraid to look. Fuck master composter, I’m coward composter. I am headed to compost class tonight, hoping to get the backbone to face my wormery despairs. I need to face this reality.

G233: Guerilla Gardening

Seed bombs

Seed Bomb Step #1: Decide what type of seeds you will be planting. Make sure that you choose native flowers or trees that will survive with little intervention (i.e. hardy). Be careful to not introduce an invasive plant species into the mix that will spread and choke out natural vegetation in the area. Flower seeds that work well in a seed bomb are sunflowers, bachelor's buttons, poppies, and cosmos.

Seed Bomb Step #2: Gather your ingredients. You will need 1 part seeds, 3 parts compost, 5 parts dry red clay, and 2 parts water. If you have rivers or streams nearby with red clay, gather from there and let dry. If not, you can buy dry red clay in a pottery supply store. Make sure to use red as it contains minerals necessary to the growth of the flowers. Other types of clay are sterile.

Seed Bomb Step #3: Mix the seeds well with the compost.

Seed Bomb Step #4: Mix in the clay with the seed/compost mixture until completely blended together. At this step, you could add a few teaspoons of cayenne pepper to the mix if you think you will have problems with ants or other creatures hauling off the seeds when the seed balls start to break down. If you are adding cayenne to the mix, use gloves to do the mixing.

Seed Bomb Step #5: Add water, a bit at a time, mixing with your hands continuously. You want to get the mixture to almost bread dough consistency but not wet and sticky.

Seed Bomb Step #6: Form the seed bombs. Pinch off a marble size piece of the mixture and roll between your hands until rounded and outer shell is smooth and has no cracks. This will protect the seed bomb from predators until germination. Continue to make seed bombs until all mixture is used up.

Seed Bomb Step #7:
Lay seed bombs in sun to dry. Continue drying for 24 hours until clay is hard and set.

I think I might make some to sell at our upcoming yard sale. The following day is my neighborhood area Art Walk. I think I could keep a sign up by my home that next day for interested art walkers. Right outside my door is the scorched earth of the railroad tracks. Many of us long for vegetation, but politicians have had crews remove any vegetation. I believe it is a sustained effort to make this area appear blighted so that there is more likelihood of declaring eminent domain. That is one theory anyway. The politicians named are just childish and petty enough to adopt such an approach.

I also like the idea of the provocative name, Seed Bomb, in this time of war mongering and machismo talk related to Georgia, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.

Seed bombs first spotted at Dwell

Seed bomb image courtesy of Diana Settar's Flickr

R123: Rethinking Rust

My love of the rusty and discarded – the barrels are my best example so far of re-purposing. This Landscape Architecture Office was my first inspiration. I started loving this look, as an already accepted design trend, long before I knew about Peak Oil or sustainable living. For me, the most appealing aspect is the juxtaposition of the living, green plant life next to the rust. The counterpoint of the stones (or concrete) is that neutral that anchors it all in my opinion.

Recently I thought about all of the rust in my landscape and the look of rust in my painted mobile home. What is funny is that I have such a strong sense of what it will look like filled with new plant life that I forget the plant life isn’t there yet. Yes, I have some huge pines towering over me, a huge fichus, another small tree and bunch of succulents. But all of the bushes, vines, grasses, etc. I see in my mind’s eye just don’t exist yet.

This photo was taken when I first painted the driveway and had everything pulled to the sides.

Notice that in the back I hung cans off the fence to grow flowering vines up the rusted metal mesh grid above. This concept was to create a living wall between the neighbors closely spaced lots.

I decided this week to take down all of the cans filled with dirt because it isn’t a very sustainable plan. I just don’t want to try growing from these cans again. The plantings would require me watching really closely and watering almost daily. That is just not a good idea. Yet, I need to get flowing vines planted in the ground below. I only have a tiny strip of earth. We shall see.

Today I am late posting as I have been working on listing my new heirloom seeds and working on a new planting plan. I had prepared my proposed plan thinking I would only be able to find smaller sized pots. I lucked out in getting the larger size. So, I have finally figured out what I want to plant and need to get it planted and watered today or tomorrow.

Update: I left out one of the main reasons I love all of the rusty elements. I think it is funny that the look of rust in a mobile home park can be so welcoming, conscious and healthy. That is my vision - to shake up our perceptions. I want to turn pervasive notions of good / bad, right /wrong, up /down, and other binary preconceptions upside down and rightside out . . .

P110: Permaculture or Planting Intensely

Peak Moment TV™ public access television features a program “Community Responses for a Changing Energy Future”. The episode here is one urban farmer’s tour of his rental property growing enough produce, fruit, legumes, grains, medicinal plants and chickens for his family’s “permaculture-informed” backyard sustainability.

For me it throws out that whole notion that one must have all the answers before beginning. Like our own community garden or my own square foot and container gardens, it is most important to simply plant. Get things in the ground.

The radically new concepts I learned watching this video relate to that permaculture is a very long-term commitment. Secondarily, it is a growing system designed for land owners, rather than renters. Besides permaculture facts, this backyard gardener, Scott McGuire changed my notion of pests. I may have to devote a post on this as it has shaken my long held notions. Lastly, McGuire stresses seed storage as an emergency item.

This little video is jam packed. I am glad I stopped by Treehugger today.

Update: I am reminded that I posted a permaculture related video in February, Desalinating Desert Dirt, that tells a story just this side of miraculous. I'd forgotten that the narrator says, "You can solve all problems with a garden."

P107: Potatoes, Peas and Planting

I was reading a website I really enjoy called Wasted Food the other day and was charmed by the innocence and enthusiasm of the blogger, Jonathon. He showed this picture of potatoes from his refrigerator. He was so guilty about forgetting them, failing to eat them and letting them sprout. I found it a delight to read in the comment thread that Jonathon didn’t know he could plant these in the ground and get potatoes. He was exuberant.

This week my food post is a little different. I am in full tilt boogie planting mode, so I haven’t been preparing food. I was thankfully fed by my son with a restaurant meal or two, I ate popcorn one meal and I have skipped a bunch of meals. Everything in my home and patterns are in disarray.

The planting project is gargantuan and I am putting all my energy toward that. Early this morning I placed the labels I made last night in the rows. I still have a zillion more to make, but I needed to feel some accomplishment. As I start this day my hands are barkin’ because I am using muscles intensely – muscles seldom used in my hands. That is my theory and it works for me better than arthritis, so I am sticking to it.

Back to the potatoes and peas. . . Some weeks ago I got advice and free potatoes from a farmer at my farmer’s market. He told me how to grow potatoes. One of his methods was to just take a barrel and put sand in it and bury some potatoes. When green starts showing, throw more sand and potatoes in and continue this all the way to the top. In some (I forget the duration) amount of time you will have a barrel filled with potatoes. I think we may try this. In the meantime I have the few Peruvian purple and fingerlings that he gave me. They have sprouted and I am going to plant them today in a spot already designated for potatoes.

Last Sunday I got some snow peas for my salads. But, as we were planting we realized we didn’t have any seeds for snow peas. So, today I will donate a bunch of my snow peas to plant around a couple palm trees. We intend to have them climb the palms. Several of the palms already have scarlet runner beans planted around them.

My planting partner, the young manager, took apart Roma tomato for its seeds a couple of weeks ago. These seedlings have grown like crazy and we hope to get them planted today too.

This is so basic a cycle from the garden to the table to the ground or to the worms to the ground. I hope more and more neighbors start getting how really simple this might be for our small group of 49 homes. And maybe someone will be as thrilled as Jonathon with this discovery of the relationship of our food to the earth.

As a post script, I will mention that I purchased my very first pomelo at the farmer's market Sunday. This grapefruit like citrus was the size of a child's head. It was huge. The farmer and his wife speak very little English, so a woman jumped in and started explaining to me that a pomelo was related, but not a grapefruit. The outer skin is very thick and the sections need to be peeled to separate the tough skin from the fruit. It is mild and sweet, not in the least bitter like grapefruit.

I won't be trying it again any time soon though, because it was just too much work to get to the good stuff, and a huge pile of waste. I could make candied peel if I cooked with such things, but I don't. I thought it would be a good grab and eat food for this busy week, but it was not that simple. Bitch, bitch, bitch. I think I am distracted, tired, aching and cranky. But, I am grinning about the damn garden. It is beautiful.

P:106 Planting and Planning

Whatever I lack in knowledge, I hope to compensate with planning. Then the rest is simply doing and trying and watching the one's who seem to know.

During this community effort I have been ahead of the pack on getting things down on paper. My object is primarily to communicate because I do this best on paper (or virtual paper) and secondarily I know the value of a record. I don't believe that anyone can carry around 1,000 sf of garden decisions in his or her head.

Come next fall - for the fall planting - we will have an annotated landscape plan to guide us for the next season's planting, and the next.

Teh plan here is only about a third of the garden beds to be planted. I need to get out there and get to work. I woke in the middle of the night wide awake. So, I worked on this and fell back asleep at dawn for another 5 hours! This will be one crazy Earth Day for me.

P105: Planting Continues . . .

It has taken weeks to get things planted at our community garden. Here is the deal, I for one have had no desire to take it all on myself. I have done martyrdom in my youth and I find it utterly distasteful. When I see someone doing this I try to stay far away and refuse to praise. Whole industries and religious paths are built on this ‘seemingly selfless’ behavior. To me it seems it is a kind of passive aggressive phenomenon.

On the other hand, I know what it feels like to feel passion and excitement. I really like the energy that comes with engagement, that blush of pleasure from simply waking up to a new day. That is the kind of joy that feeds my spirit. I think everyone has something that tickles that essence. I am a great cheerleader for that kind of raison d’être.

I have not hesitated to work alongside any interested neighbor (which has happened half a dozen times). I have written three newsletters, compiled a seed spreadsheet of information, a garden plan, built 2 planters with my son, painted said planters, stolen rocks from public land for planter pots, hauled soil from the gardens to the planters, planted the planters, made labels, mounted labels on bamboo sticks, marked pots with labels bases on plan notes, planted a quarter of the main garden, water all of the plantings and scheduled for this week.

My only point in listing all of this is to record for myself and anyone interested the mountain of minutia attached to a community effort. The part that is difficult to convey is how gratifying it is when a seeming entropic body begins moving. It is thrilling.
en•tro•py

• The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.
• Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.

In this case I am not sure if I am not more excited about my own jolt out of stasis or my neighborhood’s ‘inert uniformity’ of life patterns. Over the weekend I read the following quote and I felt it describes the current way of living for Americans. It is a kind of entropy or death.

If the pinnacle of life is a lifestyle centered on the single, private self, the glue is gone. We must bust that sophisticated specter of selfishness which haunts our houses, breeding a shrouded terror we do not want to face.

This was taken from a 2/2002 journal entry by Jules Dervaes of Path to Freedom as he was building his urban homestead with his family. This quote struck me because I know how separate I have sought to live in the past 30 years – half a lifetime. I rebelled against a small town's intrusiveness of my childhood. I felt it was imbued with bigotry and privilege. I loved the big Lebanese family I married into, but rejected the patriarchal tradition.

And, the irony is that I have taken pride in my defiance against the ‘machine’ that would have me be a compliant cog in the wheels. But, lo and behold this is exactly what is required by the ‘machine’ – to be the perfect, distracted consumer simply involved in my own head. Millions of us are no real threat to the powers that be. Unions used to be a force on behalf of workers. Neighborhoods with people interacting on their front stoops were a mini-culture of known preferences and personalities.

I am minutes away from more planting. This will be an ongoing theme this week . . .

Natasha Mayers "Building Bridges" bronze sculpture

N93: Newsletter

I am almost finished with my third newsletter, not a bit like this one, for my little community. Publishing every two weeks is what I am shooting for this spring. The reason I want to write so many is to keep excitement high with the community garden effort. The first newsletter simply introduced the community garden idea and invited all the residents to a weekend kick-off. We had food and drink, a composting / wormery demonstration and all the seeds purchased and donated were laid out for all to see and talk about.

Two weeks later I wrote about community art projects. This was last week and I wrote about it here at make-a-(green) plan. It is a sort of logical progression from blog to newsletter, yet I need to take care as the worlds are two separate spheres. For one thing, there are very real privacy issues for myself and my neighbors that preclude revealing too many particulars. I will need to remain vague when describing my community.

It works the other way too. Despite the fact I have given out the blog URL to several neighbors, I realize this removes the anonymity that can be a truly freeing aspect of writing in this venue. As I wrote Tuesday, I am not a fan of the self-censorship I was raised to practice. Also, in my blog I can make value and taste judgments about the little personal world around me. In real life it is best to shut the fuck up.

Case in point . . . I was measuring the public area the other day and a retired neighbor helped me by holding the measuring tape. While jotting down dimensions around the swimming pool I commented about a plastic bin holder, “This is really an ugly piece of crap.” The woman said, “I like it.” She proceeded to tell me how she uses it to place her book, etc. when she is at the pool. I realized later she may have been the one who ‘generously donated’ this dollar store detritus. I call it that because it clearly was originally a knock off version of a storage caddy with plastic drawer bins in a base with extruded guides. It was not made to last. Trust me – U.G.L.Y. Hey, I am constantly balancing design values (snobbery?) and waste concepts in decisions myself. What’s a woman to do?

This third newsletter, Mid-April edition, is complete except for some photos the manager took. I am waiting for her husband to email them to me. (Observation: So many women seem to find these steps to download and email something that requires a penis. It means I don’t get nearly enough photographs from female friends and family as I'd like). I asked her Tuesday to climb up on the pool shed and take a picture of the garden from above. I thought it would be great to have a ‘BEFORE’ picture. I am so happy that the manager is both spry and enthusiastic. She is a positive force of nature and that kind of cheerful resolve makes all of this community activity achievable. I title one regular column, Manager’s 2¢ for her to be a part of each issue.

One of the tasks I completed yesterday was a spreadsheet of all of the seeds donated. I included the back of the package information about depth of planting, spacing, germination, growing time, sizes and other comments. I thought it would help to have a record of this for future and a handy guide for this coming weekend’s planting.

Another opportunity I am taking in writing the newsletter is to use the newsletter to announce the upcoming Earth Day, then Arbor Day. These are great segues to raise awareness of sustainability and living green. I am attempting to routinely add quotes and images worth talking about amongst ourselves and outside this community.

I believe our residents should be in every issue via personal notes / photographs or simply mentioned in park news, like last week’s council meeting where 3 of us spoke or the 9 of us who worked to spread topsoil and manure in the gardens. In this upcoming issue I included an adorably sexy picture of my next door neighbor (not this one). He has volunteered so much of himself because in his work as arborist he has an inside track on soils, pots, plants, tools, trucks, etc. He is our official Worm Wrangler so I captioned his photo that way. I know he will blush and grin at that.

So far I have found that almost half of the residents have email, so I can distribute a .pdf via a group email. The board secretary has agreed to print a color copy for me to keep as a record and another for me to post in the community laundry room. Another resident last newsletter volunteered to pay for color copies for the residents who don’t have email.

Each issue so far has had a mention of the resident who has lived here the longest and is the president of the residents’ association board. She goes to all the city council meetings and knows the community and this park better than anyone it seems. Besides, I think respect is a given with our elders. US popular culture has denigrated the elderly whereas, in my opinion, they just might be able to help us all figure out how to live in a post-oil world.

Last but not least, the newsletter has been so appreciated and praised; I am encouraged to keep it up. I wrote the other day,

We want to be loved, accepted, respected, safe, productive, happy, secure, understood, confident, trusted, amused, conscious, perceptive, healthy, positive and smart.

So, besides simply being flattered I can also help pull this off in my tiny pocket of the California biosphere.

M87: My Garden Plans

If I hadn't titled this post as I did, I don't believe readers would ever be able to figure out the graphic above. I am the first to admit that my methods are unorthodox. My garden is a true urban garden. My containers are made up of all free materials and are in keeping with the design aesthetic I like to call, "Yes, it is a a rusty ole' thing and it is beautiful." or somesuch . . . Admittedly, there are many people (family and friends included) who don't see beauty where I see beauty. Part of the problem is that my vision holds all of the lush edible vegetation covering every rusty object in my domain. Until I get the green growing the place does just look like a junk heap. The goal will be year round food, blooms and living green air cleaning machines.
Today I am preparing the initial plans for my garden. These plans will then become the template to add all of my ideas for what I want to plant and when I want to plant. I could do elevations too if I really wanted to create layouts in the oil drums that allows for great height at the center, bushy plants surrounding and trailing plants at the edges.

Last year I had good luck with the tomato plant and the pea pods climbing the wire mesh and rebar I'd secured to the side of my house.

I have lots of room on this drive I painted like a dance floor to plant this raised bed (made from a demo'ed pergola) and oil barrels and any other handy container I might find.

M80: Manual Labor

Yesterday our community garden had its first work detail. Several young residents and a guy my age went to pick up the load of topsoil and horse manure (dried) from an ad I’d found on Craig’s List. They also went to a second spot and picked up aerated soil for a total of about 4-1/2 to 5 yards. Once back here a half dozen of us sifted through the pile and took wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow to two separate plots. One neighbor, a nurse during her day job, worked for several hours spreading the soil and then began at one end of the larger garden and turned the soil one spade full at a time.

Now that doesn’t sound like a big deal. But here is the thing. The bunch of us women around the dirt pile with our shovels had mostly sat around this last year and gotten weak. At least one guy suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and another had been at it for some hours. This crew around the great mountain of soil aged from late 50’s through 70’s. The prime energy mover is a young woman (manager) in her 20’s and the tree / plant professional neighbor is late 20’s or early 30’s. This poor guy injured his shoulder a couple of weeks ago and is miserable about not being able to do anything. He did what he could by driving the big truck, directing people and doing some pruning. Nothing underscores the importance of teamwork than our motley crew. Alone we would not be able to get much of anything done. Hell, I wouldn’t even try. Another fascinating aspect of this motley crew was the ease with which labor saving ideas were adopted (like my neighbor Jim's idea to use milk crates to sift) and suggestions for dividing the work or where to move the earth. It was consensus, cooperation experiment that did us proud.

We had pizza from the petty cash and lots of laughs. It was a good opportunity to talk about politics, music, jokes and the 50’s. I kidded that shoveling dirt and shit was the perfect time to talk politics. I was surprised there were so many Obama backers. I know there are some die-hard republicans in the park, so I usually don’t ask. But, a shared task does this. It loosens the tongue, it loosens the spirit. We had a lot of funny interactions and story telling. I found that I wasn’t alone as a Cornell graduate or someone who lived in Iowa or Nebraska.

The other benefit was a heightened sense of excitement for the next stage, and the next. Several people felt the need to talk about what a good feeling it was to join together in this task. All of us were astounded to see the pile of dirt go down. We actually finished it all but the pile of dirt clods, grass and sticks we’d sifted out. This last pile was spread out so that the dirt could be dried completely. We will then pulverize it as much as we can to make it spread-able.

This weekend there were at least 4 neighbors with the flu, one visiting a father, another burying a father and my own son had a shoulder out and work. I’d like to think that this groups and a half dozen more might be able to jump in with some bit over the upcoming weeks.

There is a great deal more manual labor required to do in simply preparing the soil for planting. But, yesterday made me relax that we will be able to gather people and to accomplish much this spring and summer. And it looks like we might be able to do it with good feelings. I also reminded the gang that we were getting something for free (besides the topsoil and manure). It was funny how there were puzzled looks and a neighbor woman said, "Good feelings working together?" (or something like that) and I said, "Food, my first goal here is that we will feed ourselves." This point is just not sinking in yet. It is part of the staggering number of Myths America that we will always have enough to eat. That was one grounding thought (excuse the pun) for the day.

Flickr ant's view of dirt pile
Flickr wheelbarrow rainbow
This photo is so pleasing to me. I like the kind of mind that would come up with such an unconventional use of a wheelbarrow. It is so happy.

K67: Kitchen Daydreams, dish drying edition

The kitchen daydreams continue with another wonderful design called Flow. Here is an incredible prototype invented by John Arndt that completely captures the reuse, reduce, recycle concept and more. It is called Flow and it incorporates whole systems in drying dishes, watering plants and composting kitchen scraps. I don’t even know if it is for sale. I know that I am going to create my own knock-off of this inspired design. I think you will enjoy this.

This whole system includes the terra cotta clay pots with specific functions including evaporative cooling fridge box and planters.
The hole in the counter and rolling compost bin with worms is pretty cool. I am not interested in that because my composting is handled.

The table yesterday is still appealing to me for the bits of trash from meals and mail. And, frankly I don’t have a spot in my set up for a kitchen counter composter. The real stars though are the hanging units for the plates. I think I can figure out how to rip off the glass and cup concept, but the plate rack is a balance issue that has me puzzled. I will have to daydream about this for a very long time.

The dishrack takes advantage of the smallest amounts of wasted water and puts it to use to water the herbs and edible plants growing in the planter boxes. The rack also eliminates the need for a cupboard allowing the dishes to be easily accessible. The plants also help attract dust which helps to keep the dishes clean and the dripping water helps to wash off the dust.

My own kitchen has some problems. It is temporary as I ran out of money when I moved in and renovated. I re-used the old white (stained) laminate counter I’d pulled from the trailer and tossed. The old counter is resting on two IKEA cabinets without doors. My kitchen sink is a big plastic laundry sink I bought for about $20 with a faucet costing 3 times that amount. I made curtains for the fronts from a paint cloth. I made a top channel in each and threaded them onto an electrical conduit or pipe I installed with electrical clips. This is the setup until I have enough money or courage to buy or make a concrete counter with a stainless steel sink. To make this would not cost much, but the work demands some real strength and competence. It intimidates me something fierce.

The temporary nature of my kitchen set-up also includes the old jalousie windows that leak. These windows were originally lower, but I asked the handyman to raise them. It turns out that the new location is perfect for catching all the rainwater that flows off the curved trailer roof. When it rains I line up cans with bowls and pans on top of them to catch the row of droplets coming in the back windows. So, wouldn’t a window conservatory affair with planter inset at the sill height and these dish draining racks above be perfect? I think so.

I will continue to daydream and to draw up plans on the computer. It is just a matter of time because it always works out somehow with found objects, barter or bargains. It just does.

Check out Flow.

K66: Kitchen Daydreams, table edition

I daydream . . . a lot. I believe it is a critically important part of living. I am thrilled when I solve problems through daydreams. During my years in university study I once jokingly wrote a syllabus for a class I imagined in Daydreams 101.

A critical component was the importance of balancing practical restraints with blue sky thinking. Clearly I am not the only person who does this. One of my favorite pastimes is checking the web for innovative design. Designers are constantly turning flights of fancy into functional products, tools and processes. And it doesn’t have to look like Popular Mechanics.

In this way I feel my daydreams are grounded. Here is the earth aspect of imagination. My post on my worms yesterday reminded me of one of my favorite pieces of furniture, the ‘Digestive Table.' I find this captivating. The designer, Amy Youngs has considered every detail for the process of our eating, viewing, composting as well as the comfort of the worms. She even specifies that the Oak used is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) cerified with a stain made from beets and worm tea. The website even features a video of the table in use by this Mr. Regular Guy (her spouse?) as the model.
I would like to clarify that I am interested in stealing these ideas and using them in my own DIY way. I haven't the income to even consider buying. That is a sad admission because I believe these designers (like authors, musicians, artists, etc.) should be compensated for what they do. But, that is a post for another time if not another blogger.

I will dedicate this post to my BFF who emailed me that the last post on worms grossed her out so much she had to quickly scroll past the images. I suspect she wouldn't be interested in the Digestion Table's screen to watch the worms and bugs eating the garbage. That camera feature is something I will definatly eliminate if I were ever to make my own model. I have a vivid enough imagination, so I don't need the surveillance camera thankyouverymuch.

I am chuckling as I type this. The miserably gross task is over for now, I have cleaned up my blog today.

J64: Join

The word join usually is my cue to exit stage left. But an integral part of my year in living a life of sustainability necessitates leaving my hermitage on occasion and working with others. I have written about some interactions with my neighbors. But, I haven't been consistent or ventured very far.

Several weeks ago I took a real leap into community by participating in a city workshop on the Highway 101 streetscape for the 2 miles in front of my home. I also have been attended a city council meeting and viewed several of them live streaming on my computer. I approached city council members, emailed and have been commenting regularly on a local blog. This is pretty big 'joining in' step for me at the community level. As a liberal I have never felt 'at home' in these western bodies. In the 80's I lived in upstate New York, Manhattan and Philadelphia where I felt shared political values with so many others living in those places.

Moving to Phoenix in '92 indeed felt like moving to a desert. I feel similarly here in Southern California. I will admit that I didn't dig deeply into the red state community groups. I just stayed to myself. But, I am pushing through my reluctance to have some beginnings of a grassroots experience. The other beginning is my participation in my mobile home park's resident association board. This only entails a meeting once or twice a year.

Now the last two weeks, since I haven't been writing on my blog, I have been writing possible city council presentations and composing several newsletter drafts. Some interested neighbors and I are trying to drum up more participation in a Community Garden for our 'soulful little' mobile home park. We also want to do some art projects around the park. This is timely with city council action coming up with mobile home parks, with the rising cost of food and to help us all build community for whatever the future will bring. The city could be contemplating eminent domain, despite talk of needing the only bit of low income housing the city can claim.

The garden is something that will help us all focus on empowering ourselves rather than stewing in paranoia or general anxiety. So, I have joined with others. It is good to venture out of my comfort zone now and again. It is also a way to be an example of living more lightly. Already so many themes of combating waste and conserving water have come up conversationally. There will be the junk that comes up with group processes, but I just know I will get more than I give.